[This is Scott K. Jamison and Elijah Van der Giessen's fault.  It is also
my semi-annual contribution to the fight against people who complain about
people who write nothing but Ranma.]


                             The Fading Rose

                           by C. Richard Davies

	"Your Majesty."

	"Oscar."

	There was then a long silence.

	"Your Majesty ... once, some years gone, when you proposed to
cancel your morning audience, I advised you against it ... and despite the
fact that all those around you saw nothing wrong with doing so, you heeded
my advice."

	"I remember, Oscar.  You have always been a good, wise, and loyal
friend to me."

	"Thank you, your Majesty."  A single breath.  "I ask that you
please heed my advice once more, and give orders for the armies of France
to return to their barracks."

	"Oscar ... I am startled.  Didn't I tell you that I fear a
revolution is in the offing?  If it begins, we shall need those troops to
put it down."

	"Your Majesty, *I* fear that by summoning those troops to Paris,
you may have inadvertantly provided the spark which may ignite that very
revolution.  I cannot with confidence state that all of these troops are
loyal to the Crown ... or to the head on which it rests.  Some ... may
join the revolution."

	"I see.  Tell me, Oscar ... where do your own sympathies lie?"

	An even longer silence ensued.

	"Oscar ... you have always been loyal to me.  I have relied on
you, and trusted you.  But as you of all people know, the payment for the
loyal performance of duty is the expectation of future loyalty.  I need
you now, Oscar.  Can I depend on you?"

	"Your Majesty ... I believe that I may be forced to resign my
commission in the very near future."

	It had been said that death was silent.

	"I see.  Well.  There really is not much else that can be said, is
there?"

	"Your Majesty ... it is not ... exactly for that reason.  I fear
that ... I have not yet spoken with a physician, but I do suspect that I
may ..."

	"Oscar ... you are but thirty-four.  It is too early for you to
think of death."

	"Death is a soldier's companion, your Majesty.  Jeanne d'Arc was
much younger than I when she left this Earth."

	"Jeanne d'Arc died a martyr, Oscar.  Not sick in bed."  There was
something else that the Queen of France most definitely did not say.

	"That is true, your Majesty ... but I can no more change my 
circumstances any more than the Maid of Orleans could change hers.  You
were correct, earlier, when you said that there was nothing more to say.
Thus, I --"

	"I believe that I was mistaken, Oscar."

	"Your Majesty ..."

	"It's going to happen, isn't it, Oscar?  Even if I do send those
soldiers back home ... sooner or later, the mob will demand what we cannot
give them, and it will begin."

	"I am not a philosopher, your Majesty.  I am a soldier."

	"I know.  A woman soldier.  Just like Jeanne d'Arc, or
Bradamante."

	"More the latter, your Majesty."

	"Oh yes ... I remember hearing that you were to marry, but that
you short-circuited the plans by showing up at your debut ball in your
uniform."  Silvery laughter.

	"My father was ... oddly unamused."

	"How strange, since he is the one who demanded that you be a man
of arms from your babyhood.  That he should ..."

	"Your Majesty?"

	"... I was just remembering something that happened nearly twenty
years ago, Oscar.  I was only recently come to France ... and Louis was
still so scared of me.  Do you remember?"

	"Yes, your Majesty."

	"It wasn't until Grandfather was dying that he was finally more
afraid of being alone than he was of touching me, did you know that?"

	A silence, demanding an answer.

	"Of course not.  How could you?  I complained of it, but you
didn't want to listen to such things then.  But there were others ... one
countess.  I can't remember her name ... she's dead now, so it doesn't
matter, anyway.  She insinuated that the real reason that he was so
frightened wasn't that I wasn't pretty.  It was that I wasn't pretty in
the right way."

	"Your Majesty ..."

	"She basically called my husband a boylover, Oscar.  The Crown
Prince of France.  I was shocked beyond words.  Disgusted.  And oh, so
frightened.  She was wrong, as it happened."

	"Of course."

	"But do you know something, Oscar?  It occurs to me ... it is
strange beyond words, but it occurs to me that by raising you as a man's
man, and then insisting you find a husband ... your father didn't just
want a son, he wanted a boylover, as well.  Isn't that strange?"

	Brief silence.  "It is strange."

	"My son loved you, Oscar.  Does that mean that he was a boylover?"

	"I ..."

	"I'm sorry, Oscar.  Do you forgive me?"

	Faintly, "Of course, your Majesty."

	"You'll permit me a few more moments of caprice, before I have to
go watch my world crumble, and you have to leave me forever?"

	"Yes, your Majesty."

	"Thank you, Oscar ... but you know, I have never been able to
seriously think of you with a man?  It always seemed ... so perverse.  I
can't help but think ... I was, of course, a maiden on my wedding night --
and long after -- but I know that that was merely a sign of my noble
virtue --"

	"If not ... your pardon, your Majesty."

	"No, no, that's all right.  I want you to get upset with me,
Oscar, like you used to.  It will remind me of better times than this.  If
not with a man, then with a woman?  No, of course not.  I ... I suppose
that I saw you as Jeanne D'Arc, as you said earlier.  The noble virgin
knight, even unto death."

	Silence once more filled the chamber.

	"But we were talking of noble virtue.  And as we all know, noble
virtue is for nobles.  One can't help but overhear things, especially in a
palace like Versailles, Oscar.  Even if you don't want to.  The maids here
are shameless.  It's utterly their fault, I suppose that no man could
resist the temptation."

	"Many men have.  Many men do."

	"Oscar ... when you were a `boy', and you looked at the servant
girls in your house, how did your father react?"

	"He didn't ... he did not say anything the first time.  The second
time ..."

	"Did he tell you it wasn't manly?  Oh, please, tell me that he
didn't tell you it wasn't many for a growing boy to think about young
girls, or I shall laugh, and I do not want to --"

	"He said it was inappropriate.  And then he beat me."

	Silence was not golden; it was a dull, gray colour.

	"Oscar, I wish that I had known you when I was growing up.  I
wouldn't feel so inclined to laugh as I do, if I had, I think."

	"Then I am glad that you didn't know me, your Majesty.  Your
laughter is a wonderful thing, sometimes."

	"Thank you, Oscar.  You are a comfort to me."

	"Please, your Majesty ... I am the one who is dying, not you."

	"It's not fair, Oscar.  We are the same age, or nearly.  And yet
you've always seemed so much older than I have -- no wonder, though -- but
now ... now you seem so young."

	"Your Majesty seems no older today to me than you did when first
we met."

	"And when you saved me from those kidnappers.  Oh, Oscar ... do
you think it would have been better if you hadn't?"

	"I could never think that."

	"I am still beautiful."

	"Your Majesty, I ... I must make another confession.  And you will
not like this one.  Von Fersen ..."

	"Yes?  What about Fersen?"

	"He did not leave France of his own will, the first time, your
Majesty.  I went to ask him to do so."

	Silence was a stone.

	"It was necessary.  There were rumours beginning."

	"I see."

	"But ... but when I did, he understood.  He ... it was not
completely of his will, but he saw the necessity.  But he said to me, `You
understand ... the Queen, she is too beautiful.  I know that I shouldn't,
but I cannot help myself.'"

	"Oh."

	"He said, `You understand, don't you?'  And I said, `Yes, Fersen.
I do.'"

	"Oh.  Oh, Oscar."

	"He ... understood."

	"I never knew.  He never breathed a word of it to me."

	"He would not have done so.  It was bad enough for the Queen of
France to be in love with him ... how much worse for the captain of the
Guard to be in love with him as well."

	"Oh.  Oh."

	"Your Majesty."

	"Oh, Oscar.  Did he return your feelings at least?"

	"He said that he did, once.  But I don't think ... that he truly
meant it.  Or perhaps ... he meant that he loved the part of me that
wasn't a woman."

	"You are such a mixture of traits, Oscar.  Perhaps that is why I
always found it impossible to think of you with a man.  I half wondered if
your father had found some magic to *give* you a manhood, sometimes."

	"I have no manhood, your Majesty."

	"Oscar ... we have known each other twenty years.  When first we
met, I was only the youngest daughter of the Empress of Austria.  And I
don't think ... in all that time, you have never called me by my name."

	"Your Majesty ..."

	"Even people who were far more formal than you are ... much less
close to me than you are, have called me Lady Antoinette ... is there a
rule that says that you cannot call me by my name?"

	Quietly, "There may be."

	Quietly, "When you leave here, you will have broken the rule that
says that you must obey me in all things.  Shouldn't you work up to it,
Oscar?"

	"... Antoinette ..."

	"A good beginning.  But there are other rules that we can break.
Oscar ... for once ... only once ... be a man."

	There were rustles, and then soft whispers too quiet even for
those who speak them to hear clearly.  And then, once, a single cry of a
name.

	More rustles.

	"Au Revoir, Oscar."  She lied.

	"Au Revoir ... Your Majesty."  She lied.

	The door closed.


				The End

	"Bara no Bersaiyu/The Rose of Versailles" was created by historical
events and by Ikeda Ryouko.  This story, while incorporating elements of a
magazine and motion picture held under copyright by others, is copyright
1998 by Chris Davies.

	Nobody Sue Me Okay?

Chris Davies, Advocate for Darkness, Part-Time Champion of Light.
"WHAT CAN THE HARVEST HOPE FOR, IF NOT FOR THE CARE OF THE REAPER MAN?" 
-- Death, in "Reaper Man", by Terry Pratchett.
http://www.ualberta.ca/~cdavies/hmpage.html